Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Nick Bosa signs mega deal -- is Jefferson next?

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

Matthew Coller chats with Vikings fans about Nick Bosa signing a record-setting deal and whether it will impact Justin Jefferson's negotiations. Plus, Kirk Cousins talked about going into the year without a contract past this season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and we have now kind of crossed the middle of the week threshold and getting closer to finally National Football League football. Thursday night, by the way, while the game is going on, Manny Hill and I will be on this very Purple Insider channel doing another episode of hot routes where we'll be previewing the week coming up and very excited about that for every Thursday night. But on Wednesday nights during the season, for the most part, we'll see how it goes next week

with the trip to Philadelphia. But I think I'll be in a hotel in Philadelphia, so we should be able to do it just fine it'll be these chats where it is Vikings fans and me just talking together so jump in the comments with uh your questions uh Vikings Bucks what's going on around the NFL whatever you've got I'm happy to answer it but I think the obvious place to start with this evening's broadcast is simple Nick B Bosa. Oh my gosh. Has so much money now. He can, he has so much money that he can afford a thousand square foot apartment in San Francisco. Am I right? Okay. Well, Nick Bosa just got one of the biggest contracts in NFL history. And the remarkable thing to me about Nick Bosa's contract is really the guaranteed money.

So when you look at how much guaranteed money he got, now this is the total guarantees, and I feel like the last couple of weeks have really been an education on the structure of contracts and what contracts really mean versus what they are reported to have meant. So he gets $122 million guaranteed, but that might not mean fully guaranteed. It might mean guaranteed for injury, and I'm very interested to see how much is fully guaranteed. And the difference is that fully guaranteed means no matter what happens from here on out, you get this much money, no matter what you're getting it for injury, unless it has one of those things where it kicks in, like in TJ

Hawkinson's deal, where in 2024, his contract guaranteed for injury becomes all of the guarantees, which is really good for him. But with Bosa, I don't know how much it's going to be. I'm assuming that this is the fully guaranteed for injury added up together. And I don't know how much the fully guaranteed is going to be, but the number for injury is 20 million higher than the next best player, which happens to be his brother, Joey Bosa. And in terms of the average annual value, of course, he sets the market now at its highest peak, which I don't know how many people are going to reach because he's a defensive MVP and has an argument for top five non-quarterback player in the entire NFL.

And so he gets this humongous contract. It's in the 170 million total money range. Probably will never quite reach that, but the fully guaranteed is kind of wild because I compared this to wide receivers and the biggest wide receiver contracts. Naturally when Nick Bosa signs and you're talking about a non quarterback position, it is going to apply also to Justin Jefferson side. Who's going to say now, wait a minute.

I think I am as valuable as a pass rusher. And Jefferson probably has a good point, maybe even more valuable than the league's best pass rusher. But the most that a wide receiver has ever gotten in total guarantees is not even close to what Nick Bosa just got. 75 to Cooper cup 72 to Tyree Hill 70 to Stefan Diggs for total guarantees. And the most fully guaranteed ever is AJ Brown at 56 million. And so when we were talking the other day with Brad Spielberger of pro football focus, he's the cap analyst expert. We were talking about going 80 million fully guaranteed or not fully guaranteed but 80 million guaranteed total and somewhere in that ballpark uh for fully

guaranteed a lot a lot of that percentage to set the market to be the highest paid wide receiver and now you have to look at justin jefferson after this and wonder, okay, is he actually going to shoot for more like a hundred million guaranteed because of what Nick Bosa was just able to pull in? And I know that they're not the same position, but when you reset the market in terms of guaranteed money by 20 million over the next best guy, then as Justin Jefferson, that kind of becomes your target to beat that $75 million number by quite a bit. And as far as average per year, these two positions are quite comparable, actually,

because the highest paid player before today was making $28 million as an edge rusher. The highest paid in average annual value for the wide receiver position was $ in Tyree Kill and then 28 in Devontae Adams. So the way that the league has valued these positions has been fairly close. But wow, did Nick Bosa just make so much money? that whatever the price was for Justin Jefferson that he is debating for going into the start of the season, which is the pseudo deadline for him to get a deal, it is possible that he looked at what just happened for Nick Bosa and said, it's got to be comparable to that, or it doesn't make any sense because wide receivers and edge rushers are fairly similar. So I think that we're not just looking at slightly beating the market. I think Jefferson is looking to demolish the market. And hey, Nick Bosa, he held out the entire training camp, threatened not to play, and then just got one of the best contracts of all time.

So it's something we're seeing around the league, players using their leverage. And I think if you're from the Vikings perspective, you don't want to get there. What you want is to get this done now. Even if you overpay now, it's better than having this happen next year where you're going through this whole ordeal and then running it all the way to the very last minute. Justin Jefferson is well aware that the Vikings can franchise tag him in the future and that life can be very difficult if you try to fight your way out of a place when you're on your rookie contract slash franchise tag. It's not easy.

And that's why a lot of times, like with TJ Hawkinson, it's probably better to just take the extension. The team gets flexibility with their cap and the player gets a lot of money and doesn't have to go through that entire battle. But if the Vikings can get Jeff, Justin Jefferson signed by week one and not have to have any concerns about this next year and get additional cap flexibility by doing it earlier rather than later that would be advantageous for them but they might have to to do something contract wise that has never even come close to have been done by a wide receiver before and if i was on jefferson's side i think this was asked

once before and i kind of like shrugged my shoulders a little bit at it like hey do you think jefferson's waiting for bosa and i was like I don't know I don't know how much they impact each other well I changed my mind I now think that they impact each other I didn't know that Bosa was going to sign a deal like this I thought he was probably gonna you know be a little bit higher than Joey Bosa but no this is way way higher And I'm sure on Justin Jefferson's side, they popped a little champagne tonight knowing that this is now what teams are going to have to pay if you have a top five player in the league

and they want to sign an extension. So a very interesting day for Nick Bosa getting this deal. And we'll see if the Vikings are able to get it done by Sunday. The only buzz that's come out really at all is just from Diana Rossini of The Athletic, who included Jefferson as a group of a couple players that she thought is likely to get a contract extension before week one, but that's all we really have at the moment,

and I don't know how this potentially could change the dynamic. There was some reporting earlier this off season of a similar type of thing. And we'll get to this with Kirk Cousins, where the Vikings thought they might be able to extend Cousins at a reasonable number. And then when Daniel Jones got 40 mil a year, it was like, okay, well, Kirk deserves more than Daniel Jones. So can you go to that number? And obviously they did not because he's going into the season with no contract. Dustin says JJ is getting 35 million a year. Yeah, I think that that's probably right. And he's got to push now for a hundred million guaranteed, even though that's way more than anybody else has ever gotten at the wide receiver position. That's probably

what he's pushing for. Once you see what Nick Bosa got here, although the percentages between fully guaranteed and guaranteed for injury can be really far apart sometimes. So AJ Brown, his number is the same. It's 56 and 56, but Cooper cup, for example, 75 total guarantee, but only 35 fully guaranteed. So that number could be a little bit inflated by Nick Bosa's side in order to try to make this contract look even better than it actually is. But I do think if you're Jefferson, uh, that, you know, you're looking for at least this kind of thing. Todd says, does JJ sign a longer-term or short-term deal? So it was in my brain for a lot of the offseason that Jefferson signing a three-year deal

would make the most sense for his side, and a five-year deal would make the most sense for the Vikings' side. But if the five-year deal is going to come along with $100 million guaranteed, well, then the five-year deal is going to come along with $100 million guaranteed, well, then the five-year deal, it may have to be, right? If you're Jefferson, because that money is just so insane that it's also maybe set up to be able to cover as the prices go up around the league, as the salary cap goes up, as the income goes up from the Amazon deals and things like that.

But it would be hard probably to turn down something as high as what Nick Bosa got. And that was probably a part of the equation for Bosa as well, is if you want me to sign for five years, it has to be through the roof, blow away the next biggest contract, because it does make a lot of sense for guys to sign deals that go through when they could be franchise tagged and then to try to put in the deal that you can't franchise tag them after that it just makes a lot of sense from the player's perspective uh i think that four years is is somewhere in the middle for for this kind of deal where it could be like hawkinson for example gets an extension for four years.

It's more like three years. And that's what the Vikings want. I mean, they want to sign usually guys for five years, but it's more like three. And it allows them to spread out the salary cap hits. So once the cap hit goes way up, that's when they can decide to restructure, move on from the player. They get the options

there. But if you're the player, you don't necessarily want to be locked in totally. You don't really want to be locked in entirely to that long, right? Because you want to have flexibility down the road if you don't like where things are at in three years or after three years you've put up more historic numbers and then you can blow away the market for a second time when guys sign five-year deals most of the time by the time they get to the end of that five-year deal they are you know down the list of where players rank in terms of being the highest paid and so that's got to be a consideration as well but i mean i'm going off of kind of the the highest paid. And so that's got to be a consideration as well. But I mean, I'm going off of kind of the logical position from each side,

but I think that if it's anything, you're going to fight for Jefferson. The guaranteed money is number one. And then are you putting in there that they can't trade you? Are you putting in there that they can't franchise tag you? Jefferson, in the position he is, now that Nick Bosa has signed, he can, we've always said, ask for the moon, the moon, the stars, the sun. He can ask for everything right now, which does make me wonder if this could get in the way a little bit of signing an extension before Sunday's game starts. I think at least some of the reporting is pointing toward that direction, but whenever it comes to contract

extensions, I've always said that it's really hard to read the tea leaves. It might feel like it's going one way and then something changes. The Hawkinson deal is a good example. It felt like TJ Hawkinson was going to come down with every disease imaginable and he wasn't going to get the extension done. And then all of a sudden he did. And sometimes it works that way. Daniil Hunter is doing a hold in and then all of a sudden the deal is done. And I kind of look at Jefferson that way, but we do have a somewhat of a deadline for this year. It doesn't mean if he doesn't sign by Sunday that you have lost Justin Jefferson and you'll never see him again. He's under team

control for several more seasons, but it does mean that next year things could get a little bit more tense. And the price, if he, if he goes500 yards plus again and the salary cap goes up again, I mean, the price will never be cheaper, no matter how insane it seems. It will never be cheaper than right now for the Vikings to get it done. So even if they have their price, they should be willing to stretch on that price.

And I think Jefferson is one of the few players that is worth somewhat near quarterback money. Although, if you look at it this way, the quarterbacks are making 40 to 50 at this point. So if he makes 35 a year, that still puts him below a quarterback, and he has close to a similar value, the most value that you could have out of a position player that is not a quarterback. Hunter says J.J. might want to exceed his contract. NFL voted him the second best player in the league.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know how much a vote like that has anything to do with the conversation, but he, I mean, between the team and Jefferson, I mean, maybe, maybe his agent brings it up. I don't know. See, second best player, but I think what it comes down to is really this now is a non-quarterback contract from a comparable position, which is the defensive end for what they get paid. So the highest end of

the market has been around 30 million. And when someone that's in a comparable position gets this much money, five years, 170 something, I mean, you've got to bring that up as part of the discussion if you're on Justin Jefferson's side. But I imagine that they were already talking about something like this. To me, the guaranteed money is where it gets really interesting because do you want to sign up for 100 mil guaranteed, which blows out of the water, the next best receiver. But if you try to play it close to the next best receiver, Jefferson could say, that's okay. I'll wait. I'll hang around. You know,

M Sullivan says has to be a four year deal. If not five now. Yeah. That's the thing is I don't think that you want, if you're the Vikings, to sign a three year deal because then we're going through this in a very short period of time again. And he's going to just have that price go way up and there's less flexibility. So there's less ways that you can mess around with the salary cap. Like we were talking about TJ Hawkinson and how is it that a man can be making 16 plus million a year and somehow not have a cap hit in the first three years that goes above 16 million. That's the NFL.

That's the game. There's two games being played. There's on the field that starts this Thursday. And then there's the front office. How much can you mess with your own salary cap? How well can you structure contracts to give you flexibility down into the future and keep those cap hit numbers low ish at the beginning of the deal. So if you're Jefferson, of course, at some point, since you're so expensive and highly paid, it's going to be high. He's not going to just have low cap hits forever. But if you can make it a five-year deal and

stretch it out into this year, I mean, that's about as helpful as you can get for dealing with someone who's going to be making $35 million per year. So it's way favorable to do it now. And it's way favorable to do it longer because then with, for example, with the TJ Hawkinson deal, I think it's a $21 million cap hit or something like that in the fourth year of the extension. And that's never happening. It's not going to get there to that point, or they're going to restructure it, or they're going to extend him, or they're going to cut him and take a little bit of dead money. But that's how these things work. They set them up intentionally to work in their favor.

So the longer they can make it, the better is what they're trying to do. And for Jefferson, the shorter you can make it, a lot of times the better, unless it's something like this, unless it's something like a Nick Bosa deal. And that's why I think that the Nick Bosa deal does change the game a little bit with Jefferson from a S JJ is one of those guys where I think you have to give him whatever he wants. And I doubt the team regrets it in the long run. Yeah. A big part of that is his age. I mean, the same thing goes for Bosa when you can sign a player of this talent at this age

because he came into the league fairly young, I mean, that's about as safe of a bet as you can make. And I know that there's always going to be that, like, what if we trade him for three first-round picks? You just can't replace a player like this. You just can't. There's no – the impact of a player like this. You just can't. There's no, the, the, the impact of a player like Bosa or like Jefferson cannot even really be talked about in this is how many catches,

this is how many yards could three players be worth as much. Yeah. I mean, if all three become stars that you draft with your three first round picks, but what are the odds of that? Probably not that high. If only one becomes a good player, then you just gave away the greatest player on earth. That's not a quarterback for almost nothing. Like you don't want to do that at any point. And yeah, you get some cap space to spend, but it is the superstar players that are going to drive your success as a team into the future. So I feel like you're fairly safe paying somebody like him who's in his prime. He's not going to fall off anytime soon. And then when you have the rookie quarterback

contract, that balances this out. So if your quarterback is making 5 million, it's okay that your receiver is making 35. And again, the cap hits will probably not ever really get there or they won't get there for a number of years. And just to use an example, I'm going to pull up a AJ Brown's contract here and just take a look at what his cap hit is this year, this year, 2023, AJ Brown's cap hit is $8.3 million. And then it's 12 in 2024. This is the guy with the most guaranteed money fully guaranteed in the league. And,

and it isn't until 2025 until his cap hit shoots way up. So there's a lot you can do with it. When the guy signs a long-term deal, a Hunter says, what if there ended up being a five-year deal for JJ with a clause in the contract that said each year he would be paid 1 million more than the highest paid non-quarterback. That would be pretty crazy. I don't know if that's something that like you can do. I mean, maybe you can, maybe you can. Uh, but that's the, like, that's

the type of stuff you're talking about where if you're in Jefferson's position and you don't have to sign right now, you've got a lot of leverage, I think, with the team. And you can ask for stuff like that, I guess, if you want to. But, I mean, of course, if he makes what we think he's going to make, I don't think it's going to be a huge problem for him to be at the very top of the NFL for non-quarterbacks. From Steven, is there a scenario where next year is a better situation for the Vikings to sign JJ or definitely better to sign him now? That's a great question. In my opinion, it's much better to sign him now because for one, the price doesn't go down.

It's only going up. I mean, Justin Jefferson could have a mediocre year and the price still goes up. And by his standards, what's mediocre 1500 yards and 88 catches or something. I mean, because of what he's done so far, it's not going to get cheaper because once the salary cap goes up, there's going to be more discussion from his side of like, well,

you guys got more cap space now. And, and look, this guy and that guy signed deals around the league and they're even higher. So I looks like we need to push the price up. It may not ultimately make that much of a difference, but where it's the difference making factor to me is that you can push some of that money into this year and that they created even a little bit of space for, uh, with the way they did Hawkinson, maybe for Jefferson to be able to fit some of his money in. I just think the earlier

you do it, the more flexibility that you have. And that's the important part. The more you can spread it out, the longer. Now, if he did a five-year deal next year, maybe it doesn't make that big of a difference it's it's not like it's not like it's ever going to be cheap for one it's always going to be super expensive and it's always going to be something you have to work around you have to structure properly so it's not the end of the world if he doesn't get it done this year and gets it done next year i just think it's a little more favorable to get it done this year. Folks, we are going all in on prize picks this football season. If you haven't heard of it, prize picks is the easiest and best way to play

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slash purple use the code purple for a first deposit match up to 100 that's prizepicks.com slash purple use the code purple prize. Daily fantasy sports made easy. Jack says, help me understand the difference between signing bonus and yearly salary. What counts against the cap? Yeah. So let me try to think about that. What counts against the cap is such a hard question to answer. And there are cap experts who understand this better than I do.

What makes up the cap number is the base salary and the bonuses make up the cap number? I think that's right. Yes, base salary and bonuses make up the cap number. And so the thing is that how it all works to figuring out the, uh, dead cap

and all that stuff is based on how much guaranteed money has been used already. So if a player has already been given all of their guaranteed money, then the dead cap, it goes down, right? And if you're owed the guaranteed money, then the dead cap is higher. Does that make sense? Because obviously if it's guaranteed, you can't just cut the player and then not have any implications. Um, but yeah, it's, it's a little complicated and that's why I try to kind of focus on mostly just what's the cap number going to be. Cause that's what really matters to us here is what the cap number is going to be and how much you can mess with it with restructures and things like that.

So Chris says, it's kind of wild that this statement is true. There's two Vikings games in the next eight days. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Yeah. How crazy is that? And the biggest discussion is still a contract,

still an off season kind of discussion. So Bob says the league made the rules. is still a contract, still an off-season kind of discussion. So Bob says the league made the rules. It's Kweisi's job to manipulate it. Rob Brzezinski's job, really, and he's done a great job at it for a very, very long time. I mean, he's as good as they get for cap guys, and having a really good cap guy is kind of like a hack, which is why I think if they are to sign earlier then um they can do more

to mess around with it so we'll see how it goes i mean i i don't know like uh maddie asks on a scale of one to ten how much should we panic if we don't sign him this year i would only say like a three because you've got a really long time to sign him before next year you guys remember the offseason remember how long that was and i know with bosa it came down to the very very very last day before almost almost before the season starts for san francisco so that can happen but even then if you're in san francisco do you care he wasn't in camp? Like, I wouldn't care. So there is a long time to do this. And also, it's just so much in the player's favor to sign an extension now

and not go through all that fifth-year option, franchise tag, whatever else. Jefferson is well aware that the franchise tag exists and the team's going to use it. So it could get a little down and dirty next year. If there's not something done by minicamp, then maybe you move that scale up a little, but I don't think that you start really moving it up until you see Ian Rappaport tweet, Justin Jefferson has demanded a trade like that until then, I would still believe that they

were going to sign an extension with Jefferson. He would have to be very unhappy and start making digs like noise in order to try to get out. But I just can't, I just can't see that. I mean, it happened with Khalil Mack. That's, that's the last really, really true elite top five player in the league where it's happened. But with this team, I mean, look at the Hawkinson thing. This team, if they want to keep you, they will pony up the money to keep you. So it could only be a matter of unhappiness and, I mean, maybe trying to fight them all the way to the end and use leverage.

But I would not say, if they don't get it done by Sunday, I would not move that panic meter very high. It's just going to linger as a discussion point. And you're going to have to wait a while, which is, you know, more frustrating than having it off the table. But it's not like it's over or something, or he's traded to the Raiders, right? Like he's still on the team very much and still under contract for quite a while.

Deontay says, once they signed JJ, they locked themselves into a new quarterback for sure. Yeah, I think that's all part of the plan. That's the way it seems to me, right? I get, it looks like it's all part of the plan from the beginning of the Kweisi Adafo Mensah, Kevin O'Connell era was that they knew someday they were going to have to pay Justin Jefferson and Christian Derrissaw a ton of money and that they were

going to balance that out by having a rookie quarterback contract. So Z lean says interesting thought experiment. Would you rather have Daniel at 22 a year and a replacement level tight end or TJ at 17 and a replacement level defensive end? I would probably prefer the former. Yeah, the thing with Daniil and TJ Hawkinson is that even though I would rather have an elite defensive end than an elite tight end, it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison

because Daniil Hunter has a significant injury history and is older and he's been in the league now a long time. So you're taking a bigger risk with that than you are with TJ Hawkinson, who has essentially no injury history and is 26 years old. And when you're playing with football, you're talking about like the difference between 29 and 26 is really big. I mean, that's a lot of years, a lot of miles on the body.

And I think if there's a reason not to sign Hunter, it has nothing to do with his positional value, which is extremely high, or his talent, or how he handles himself, which is just A-plus across the board. It's really about that injury history and the risk that you take. Can you assign him to $22 million a year? It's also about his price. Where is his price? Where is his price now after Nick Bosa signs? He doesn't have quite Bosa's resume, but it's not that far away. So that probably makes it harder.

Yeah, I mean, the difference in per year and the positional value, yeah, probably leans toward the defensive end, but I think it's just a little more complicated than that. Also, you know, offense think that is an interesting experiment. But if it was as simple as just player versus player, I'd probably lean toward Daniil if they were the same age. Digit says, JJ gained national prominence in a small market. Is this a small market? I don't think so. This is the 15th biggest market in the country. FYI. I don't think he needs a large market for all that sponsorship money.

Of course not. No, I mean, market size, the NFL is irrelevant. It doesn't matter. You could play in Jacksonville. You could play in Minnesota. You could play in New York. It's all the same. It's the biggest product in American sports.

And Justin Jefferson and myself, obviously, both have awesome pairs of Oakley's. So we're both having no trouble with sponsorships, but yeah, I mean, that's not going to make any difference to Jefferson. I mean, you, you become, you become a national superstar in the NFL and where you're playing doesn't make any difference. I mean, New Orleans is actually a way smaller market than Minnesota. And yet you guys know drew breeze, right? Like that's yeah. That's the thing. So from AS we're Vikings fans and have been through Moss and digs wanting out. So my panic level would

be like an eight. Yeah. Okay. I didn't factor that in. I was trying to kind of bring you down a little bit there, but from a high panic meter, but I totally understand a hundred percent that if you've gone through this before with other wide receivers that you are until he's locked into that contract, that that that's going to be a concern. But I mean, Stefan digs, this won't make you feel better. Stefan digs already had his contract issue or his contract signed. And it wasn't, that wasn't the issue. His contract extension was not the problem.

Money was not the problem for Stefan Diggs. It was really, it really came down to the offensive philosophy, believing that the team had run its course and wasn't going to win going forward. I mean, I think those things, the team not hearing him out, not listening to him, and also Diggs' nature in general that the guy just runs like super hot. And I think that Jefferson

is a much more sort of calm and collected type of player. Not a criticism. I mean, utmost respect for Stefan Diggs, but I think they're different people a little bit where Diggs would get frustrated and I think go're different people a little bit where Diggs would get frustrated and I think go too far sometimes. And Jefferson, I mean, just look the way he's handled this whole

thing. Every practice rep, nothing, nothing out there in the media, not at all. It's been really impressive from him. He showed a lot of maturity in handling this thing, which makes you, I think, more confident that it's going to happen. But you're right that my panic meter shouldn't have been at three, considering where we are, considering the fairly recent past. Rob says, do you think the Bucs will test the Vikings young secondary early and often? Absolutely. I mean, absolutely. I mean, if you're the Bucs, you've got to be coming out with a couple of deep shots. Right. I would think so. Just to see what you got there, because as impressed as I've been with Makai Blackman, one thing is when you're of preseason was just that physical and grabby

are a very fine line. And when you have receivers as big and as talented as Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, you're going to say, all right, undersized corner, like, let's see what you got right away. And it's part of the Vikings defense to one, confuse Baker Mayfield and not make it easy and pressure him and not make it easy to throw those shots down the field. It's on them to confuse him with coverages. It's on them to give as much help to Makai Blackman as possible. There are two sides of the argument to Brian Flores' defense. On one side, you could say, boy, it's hard for corners because they blitz a lot and they're one-on-one. But part of the philosophy of being aggressive is to make it

so the quarterback has to get the ball out faster, which is easier for the corners. So I don't know which one it will be on Sunday, but yes, 100%, I think you're them, but I mean, that's one of the things that Baker Mayfield does well is that he has a good arm. So, you know, he could go down the field to these receivers. They're, they're going to test these corners and that's the matchup of the game. The two matchups of the game to me are the corners versus Evans and Godwin and Vita versus the interior of the Vikings offensive line. And if the Vikings survive both of those, I don't even think they have to win both those matchups. I think just survive, then they can win the game. Uh, Thor asks, can you explain the quasi three-year plan if they bring in a rookie quarterback in year three? So here's my

guess about the three-year plan. I think it became a four-year plan after what happened last year, because I'm not so sure that they thought what happened last year was going to happen last year. I think when they came in, they said, all right, we're going to do everything we can to win in 2022. But if you were projecting that team from the start, and you can look back at like Vegas lines and things like that, of what people thought that team was going to be, you might have said a fringe playoff team. And you might have said if you're them, all right, Kirk's contract is running out and it's a short term extension. So what we're going to do is play out this year, win eight, nine, 10 games and then trade cousins and draft a quarterback. But how it ended up playing out was cousins played really well they won 13 games he was great in the clutch and then the

draft comes around and there was lots of discussion about the vikings wanting to trade up to get one of the quarterbacks but they went one two and four so there wasn't any option for the vikings to take a quarterback in the first round from the three guys that were first round talents. So now you kind of push it back a little bit. You rework a lot of the roster, which I think they knew from day one that they were going to have to do. So you move out a lot of the older players and you try to set up for not just next year, but being able to drop in a rookie into a good situation next year, if that's what they're going to do. And then it's really the year after that,

where you're spending all the money from the quarterback contract that you can in free agency. And you're hoping that these younger players on defense have developed that younger players have taken the jobs of the older players that you move out. Maybe that's like Daniil Hunter and things like that. So I think it's a little bit more of not exactly shooting for 2024, but maybe 2025 as Super Bowl window begins. I mean, I know that sounds like that's forever down the road, but I think that's the progression. Considering where they were with the salary cap

and where they were with the salary cap and where they were with the age of the roster last year was kind of the last dance for a lot of the team and then they refreshed to this year and what you're looking for is to be in the playoffs again with a lot of these young players and then have a really good roster to drop a rookie quarterback into next year where normally rookie quarterbacks are dropped into bad teams and they stink right away because of that. But they're trying to kind of circumvent the system a little bit by having a really good roster for that quarterback, or they could get Murray or they could get Kirk on an extension because he wins 12 games. Like, I don't know. There's a lot

of different scenarios there, but I think the three-year plan changed a little bit with what happened last year. Dave says, if Hunter has a better season than Bosa, it will be close to impossible to sign him. Yeah, I mean, I think if Hunter even has a decent season because of Bosa, it will be almost impossible to sign him. Because when the ceiling is set as high as it is set now by Nick Bosa, if you're Daniil Hunter and you run the numbers, you're like,

hey, I know this guy got 18, but I got 14. And so that's not that far away, right? And so, yeah, maybe I'm not worth 30 plus, but maybe I'm worth 27. Uh, he could make that case if he has a really good year and that would be hard to sign him to an extension. I also keep thinking every time we get close to believing Daniel Hunter is going to leave, he doesn't. So there might be something to be worked out there, but next year is really Hunter's big, big payday. And so, you know, if he has a good year this year, then the way that the price

just went up. Yeah. I think that will be very hard to sign him. And then next year, you know, you gotta be talking about drafting some defensive ends using the money that's, that's moved out to sign somebody because the edge rushing situation, not great. Although, you know, Davenport might be a guy that they can continue to bring back if he has a good season. So, yeah, there's a lot of questions to be answered along the way here this year. Steve says, my panic level for JJ has been high for two years already.

Yeah, I get you. I get you, man. I get you. But logically looking at it, you have to understand that with the fifth year option, that's 2024. Two franchise tags, 2025, 2026. Yes, a player can make a lot of noise and try to fight their way out or whatever. But that's a long time to have to try to fight. If you're Justin Jefferson, when you could just take like a hundred million dollars in your pocket. So ultimately that's why

I think this thing will get done. I just don't know when, uh, 44 Rhino man. Nice to see you. Rhino man. Uh, I just, just so you know, I envision you because your number is 44 and your Rhino man as an, as a Rhino with a neck roll and the number 44, like that's how I picture you because your number is 44 and your rhino man as an, as a rhino with a neck roll and the number 44, like that's how I picture you. Let's see. Kirk has to know it's over in Minnesota, right? I'm glad you brought this up 40 minutes into this discussion.

I have the quotes from what Kirk Cousins said today. He's a business guy and has to see the upcoming extension for Darisaw as well. He's playing for next year's contract. Absolutely. So he said today, uh, Oh, and now it logged me out of it. Hold on. Let me log back in and pull up what he had to say today for Kirk cousins, because it was interesting and it's interesting how open he's been about this entire thing about just not being that concerned about it. And he really reiterated it today. He said today that he, I'll just read it to you. He said, quote, I remember when a quarterback was drafted

high in New England and Tom Brady was the starter and Tom made the point, there is no entitlement in the NFL. And if there's no entitlement in the NFL, that organization is probably doing it wrong. Or if I'm sorry, if there, if there is, if there is entitlement, then the organization is doing it wrong. So I think it's healthy when players need to go out every day and nobody's entitled to anything. I think that's a healthy way to run an organization. It's going to bring the best out of all of us. If it isn't that way here, I would be the first one to complain and say, I sent some entitlement, so let's change that. And he also mentioned that the last time that he felt like he had security was when he was the quarterback at Holland High School. And this is something that he's reiterated numerous times.

But the answer to your question is absolutely, absolutely he recognizes that. He knows the deal, but he's been through this before. And the funny thing is that Kirk cousins might be one of the only players that I could think of that I've ever covered that would just play the same game. I don't think it's going to change anything about who Kirk is, but I also think that you're right. He's aware that when your team has an opportunity to make you essentially a Viking for life and they say, nah, I don't know, then it's probably over. So, you know, I, I, that's where this season is weird to me because it's very rare that we all know it's over with a quarterback unless the guy's retiring.

And yet I think we all know at this point and a comment like that pretty much says, Hey, I it's all right. I'll go out and play my game again. And, uh, you know, I'll do what I'm going to do. So I respect it. I respect the approach from Kirk cousins to just say, it's fine. I'll go out and earn another contract. Folks, this fall season is an unbelievable time for sports. And I'm always a fan of trying to catch other games when I go on the road to cover football, like baseball, hockey, basketball, just about anything. And that's why I use GameTime, the fast and easy way to buy tickets of any type of event, even music, comedy, whatever you're looking for. GameTime has last-minute flash deals on tickets, images of seats, and a low-price guarantee. You don't have to plan your tickets months out in advance.

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if you look at Derek Carr's season last year, very mid, very below mid. It was not good. And yet he still made like $38 million from the saints because someone's always going to believe that they're just that average quarterback away. And in Kirk's case, of course, an above average quarterback, someone's going to believe that, but it is, it does feel very much like the Vikings have said, we're kind of done. And Kirk has said, okay, sounds good to me. Let's play football. From Maddie Ice, what about the chances less total than Bosa,

but higher and fully guaranteed? I don't think there's any chance that Jefferson could get to more guaranteed. Although, I don't know the fully number yet, the fully guaranteed number. that Jefferson could get to more guaranteed. Although fully, I don't know the fully number yet, the fully guaranteed number. But what we do know is that he went so much higher in terms of guaranteed money, which is guaranteed for injury. And then some of that is fully guaranteed.

He went so much higher than the next person that that's what Jefferson's going to want as well. So yeah, I mean, that's's what Jefferson's going to want as well. So yeah, I mean, that's really the number that matters to everybody. And then the cap number is what matters to the front office. And so we'll have to see how that's going to end up playing out. Holden says, do you think we're going to draft a quarterback in 2024? I mean, I'd lock it in right now. I mean, yeah. I mean, if they pay this money to Jefferson, similarly to what Bosa just got and anywhere close, yeah, you got to draft quarterback

because there really isn't a whole lot of chance that you could afford Cousins, Jefferson, Derrissaw, and anything else. So Joshua says, if you could add work done or Mike Allstott to the 2023 Vikings, which would it be? Do you want my head or my heart? Which do you want? Because I think Warwick Dunn is more of an impact player. I mean, work done probably, does he get his credit? Running backs are just never going to get their due ever again. Let me pull up Warwick Dunn here real quick because quick because work done was one of my favorite players i thought that he was just so dynamic and explosive

and versatile yeah i mean at one point work done's catching like 40 to 60 passes running for a thousand yards averaging 4.6 yards a carry i mean he's pretty darn good at football and had that researched i mean even at uh age 28 he averaged 5.4 yards per carry he went 1400 yards at age 30 how about that for work done it's probably work done but i'd i'd really like to see mike all in purple with the neck roll and did that huge like giant thing he had behind his neck so it's probably the more impact players probably work done but how can you not pick mike allstott uh daniel says crazy to think this far out but at the viking sign jj and dare saw i't know, maybe two of the three with Murphy Hunter

and Davenport and Kirk is gone. How aggressive will they be to trade for a top pick? Some of this depends on just who's available. I mean, do you have to trade for a top pick to get the quarterback that you want? Because in recent history, that hasn't always been the case. I mean, just think about Chicago, for example, what were they drafting 20th or something like that when they traded up to get Justin Fields? I mean, there's, I think that there's going to be a number of good quarterback prospects out there, but it's all going to depend. I mean, that they look that way in week one of the college season by week eight of the college season, we could be like, Oh, actually no cancel, cancel. There's not many good quarterbacks right now. There could be Trevor Sycamore for PFF on the

show. The other day said he thought there could be six. If there's six, then they shouldn't have to trade up. If there's three, then they might have to trade up so freddie asked what would you do with 170 million dollars i have no idea because i the answer is probably the same thing i'm doing right now except for with a bigger tv like i don't know what i i have uh everything that i want so i i've never really thought about it. But that's an interesting question because, like, I drive a Honda, but it's fine. I don't go 140 miles an hour. I just drive to the Vikings facility.

I would keep working because this is fun. This isn't work. This is fun. So I don't know. You know what I would do? Honestly, this is fun. This isn't work. This is fun. So I don't know. You know what I would do? Honestly, this is true. I would just build a journalistic entity that didn't fire people all the time. That's what I would do. I would take that money and I would hire a bunch of my favorite journalists and I would create a platform that everybody could just do their jobs,

get paid a decent wage, and we could have a lot of fun talking sports. And people wouldn't have to be worried all the time about whether the board thinks that you should cut whatever or this number of subscriptions sold or whatever. That a lot of these companies making sure they pay their CEOs and not their writers and all that. That's what I would do with it because I don't really need stuff. I just want to talk football and have a good time. So there you go. Work done is a need stuff. I just want to talk football and have a good time. So there you go. Work done is a great human. I know. Yeah, I mean, if you don't know the work done story,

I think I can't retell it off the top of my head, but look it up. I think he builds houses for people. I mean, it's really something. There's a guy who took the money that he made and turned around for good reason. So LOL, I drive a Honda. I wouldn't give up the Honda for nothing. I like my car. Okay. This is actually true. When I have a taco bar, is it in the past nine o'clock? It's usually not until

nine o'clock where we start to get ridiculous with these questions. Yeah. Taco bar would be great. Now that is actually true that if I did have that much money, I would have someone just cook all my meals and I would have someone try to replicate everything at Taco Bell, but just came over to my house and did it. So I didn't even have to go through the drive-thru, although they have a great drive-thru. Back to topic. Rob says, so many storylines for the Vikings this year. It's a fascinating year. I have to tell you just a little, just a little story here for the end of the show that, uh,

after 2021, when they were doing the search for the new coach and they were talking about Jim Harbaugh, I was like, I don't know, guys. I just don't know. I mean, this team has kind of worn me down with bad decisions and with weird coaches and bad culture and all those things and missing the playoffs. And Jim Harbaugh is a talented coach, but he's also like Jim Harbaugh. And I wondered, is this going to be interesting? Is this going to be just a disaster?

What is this thing going to be? And the answer is we still kind of don't know because last year was crazy, but we all know it was like a weird season and everything, but it was fun. And then now I think what I'm just so interested in is what you're saying. Like all these things that have to be resolved. What is Kirk Cousins final season here? Like if it is, is there a way that it's not how many of these players are going to prove themselves? How long is Brian Flores going to be here? What's Jordan Addison going to do to this offense? I mean, there's just so many things

that have sort of like rejuvenated the energy for following this team. And I think that that goes for a lot of the fan base. Not that anybody wanted Adam Phelan out or Eric Hendricks out, but when you have a new team, that's really a new team. There's just a lot to look at. There's a lot to be interested in and then the future makes it uh so much you know so much more interesting than at any given time we're a few days away from a game but a huge discussion here on the show is well what's the future going to be like though and so i think you know there was like two questions about the tampa bayucks. Big game, by the way. Big game.

So anyway, we all got to watch Saturday football now, though, because of what we're talking about. And that's kind of my big goal for the year is to try to watch as many of these quarterbacks so we can just sort of intersperse that into the discussion. So I got to see Sanders last discussion so i got to see sanders last week i got to see drake may i've seen caleb williams before uh yeah he's good but anybody else so i'm going to be looking up quarterback lists and watching games and seeing who's on and and all the while the vikings have pressure to win and in my mind they, someone was asking me the other day, how I came on 10 wins, like how I decided 10 wins other than just filling out Well, if you decided not to move on from him, that means you have to win.

That means that's what the expectation should be. So that kind of played into my thought of picking 10 games. That's the bar. If they win fewer than that, then what was this for? I mean, if they win seven, what was this for? So it's, like you said, very, very interesting, fascinating year coming up. This will be last question of the night. Last question of the night.

Daniel says, do you think Ivan Pace will rotate with the linebackers or will he only see the field due to special teams? Oh, I think he's going to play. Yeah, I think him and Brian Asamoah, that's the pronunciation now. I was chatting with somebody today out there, and I was like, did that happen, and I missed it? No, he just informed the team that that's how he wants it pronounced. So Brian Asamoah.

And Pace, I think, will rotate. Now I have a milkshake bet with Andrew Kramer about who plays the first snap. I have Pace. He has Brian Asamoah. So we'll see if I end up owing Andrew a milkshake bet with Andrew Kramer about who plays the first snap. I have pace. He has Brian awesome. Wow. So we'll see if I end up owing Andrew a milkshake or not. But I think that the MO of Brian Flores is that like you have to use a lot of different players to their strengths, or it doesn't really work. Like that's his thing is you got a lot of stuff that you're going to do a lot of different ways of showing, you know, blitzes and fronts and

personnel packages. And, and he's going to use people to their strengths as much as he can. That's the philosophy, which I think means playing a lot of players that that's new. That's going to be new for us to actually be like, wait, who's on the field? Because normally it's just been the same people. All right. It's almost nine o'clock. Usually, usually we have to wait till nine o'clock till we get a take like this from Russell trade. Jefferson now get three first round picks and the super bowl will come. Probably not. No, that's probably a bad idea. That's a really bad idea. Actually. Usually if the super bowl comes to a team, it's when they have players like Justin Jefferson. So I would rather keep him. We almost made it to a nine o'clock before we got

the, why don't you trade Jefferson take? The thing is that if you have the rookie quarterback contract and Jefferson, you can afford it. So you don't need to trade him for picks unless, unless he does something crazy, unless he goes to the top of us bank stadium and says he won't come down until he's traded for three first round picks. That's the only way you do it. So anyway,

well, another super fun night. Really appreciate all of you guys jumping in, having another good conversation here. I mean, if it happens, if there's an extension that happens, we'll be live on the channel as soon as possible.

And look, I just want to throw this out there that, uh, when we showed up for the press conference the other day, nobody knew that TJ Hawkinson had signed an extension and they announced it right there. We got two more trips out to Eagan tomorrow on Thursday and then Friday. So we'll see. Maybe they'll call us together and we'll have another press conference. All right. Raggett's Roundtable with Andrew Kramer and Will Raggett. Keep an eye out for that on the channel. And if you guys

haven't checked out the Hot Routes show that I did with Marcus Whitman, check out the Hot Routes feed. I don't know if I have anything else to promote. So it's a great week. Thanks everybody for chatting and we'll talk to you all soon.